Comfort break

A week spent in a low-roof, rear-steered XF530 Comfort Cab on heavy plant work proves no inconvenience for our strapping T&D tester

- Bob Beech

Tag-axle tractors are considered the best option for tougher applications and are a popular choice for medium/heavy plant and machinery haulage, providing – if used correctly – better traction and manoeuvrability.

Some of the latest versions with steering tag-axles take the concept a stage further, Volvo, Scania and now Daf offering this option in the UK.

Keen to try a rear-steer Daf, we gratefully accepted an XF530 FTN 6x2 rear-steer tag-axle tractor with the low-roof version – called Comfort Cab – of the XF sleeper cab, a familiar option in Europe but rarely seen in the UK.

In keeping with this truck’s specification, we looked to our good friends at Wiltshire-based Bryants Transport, which specialises in shifting agricultural machinery and specialist construction equipment.

Using a variety of step-frame and power-steered low-bed trailers, perfect for the rear-steer Daf, its trucks visit farms, congested construction sites and other difficult-to-reach locations on a regular basis.

Modern farm machinery, such as tractors, combine harvesters and so on, are seriously beefy. Bryants also shifts a lot of big soil-stabilisation machines, often taking outfits into Special Types regulations. Fortunately, Daf was able to uprate this FTN to 50 tonnes gross; we understand that it can operate at slightly higher STGO weights if specified with a higher-capacity drive-axle.

The variety of work included medium- and long-distance routes but also plenty of country lanes, visiting farms, construction sites and dealers’ yards. We had a couple of nights away in the compact cab and the weather was wet and miserable for a fair bit of our week with the Daf.

Specification